There may not be a team in the NBA that needs to make a trade more than the Denver Nuggets. The team has championship aspirations, as they should. They won a title 18 months ago and they employ the best player alive, Nikola Jokic.
Any team with a generational player in his prime should be doing everything in their power to improve the roster and compete for titles. That’s the category that Denver falls into for now. Jokic is the best player in franchise history, currently at the peak of his powers.
The Nuggets need to be aggressive to maximize this title window and right now that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening. The roster has clearly gotten worse in the past two seasons with multiple reliable veteran role players walking in free agency, being replaced only by unproven young players.
It was a bold strategy at the time, but now that it clearly isn’t working, the Nuggets need to actively make some moves. The roster has a talent issue. Beyond Jokic, they don’t have an all-star-level talent on the team. They need to be making moves to upgrade their talent.
Marc Stein reports impactful role players available for 2nd-round picks
It’s frustrating for Nuggets fans to see fellow West teams like the Warriors and Lakers make moves to bolster their rotations. Golden State flipped three 2nd-rounders to the Nets for Dennis Schroder, then LA dealt three 2nds to the Nets for Dorian Finney-Smith. Those are two very useful role players, added just for future 2nd-round pick capital.
In the wake of the DFS deal, Marc Stein reported that other veteran role players, Malcolm Brogdon, Jonas Valanciuans, Jordan Clarkson, Bruce Brown, and Kelly Olynyk are “believed to be available for second-round draft compensation.”
Nuggets’ lack of 2nd-round draft picks is killing them
Those all sound like players that could easily help the Nuggets, but sadly, the team has wasted all of their 2nd-round draft capital. Calvin Booth has been extremely reckless with the team’s draft assets. He dealt three 2nds to move up seven spots in the draft and dealt another three 2nds just to dump Reggie Jackson’s expiring $5 million contract.
Those moves seemed careless at the time and look even worse now. The Nuggets have no more 2nd round picks and are unable to get in the mix for any of these solid veteran role players simply due to recent roster and asset mismanagement.
Giving up three picks to move up in the draft is fine if the pick is a slam dunk. Unfortunately, DaRon Holmes got injured immediately and the jury is still out. But using three valuable picks for a salary dump while the team is trying to contend is inexcusable.
Denver had no reason to make that deal and it looks worse by the second. If they had those picks, they could likely have attached them to Jackson (and others) to bring back an actual helpful player. Dumping these picks just to get off of a small expiring contract is pure negligence by the front office.
The move looked terrible in the moment and it gets worse by the day. Every time a veteran player gets moved for 2nd-round picks, just think, that could have been a player the Nuggets acquired if not for their own cheapness and impatience.